How to yum install Node.JS on Amazon Linux

Stumbled onto this, was strangely hard to find again later. Putting here for posterity:

sudo yum install nodejs npm --enablerepo=epel

EDIT 3: As of July 2016, EDIT 1 no longer works for nodejs 4 (and EDIT 2 neither). This answer (https://stackoverflow.com/a/35165401/78935) gives a true one-liner.

EDIT 1: If you're looking for nodejs 4, please try the EPEL testing repo:

sudo yum install nodejs --enablerepo=epel-testing

EDIT 2: To upgrade from nodejs 0.12 installed through the EPEL repo using the command above, to nodejs 4 from the EPEL testing repo, please follow these steps:

sudo yum rm nodejs
sudo rm -f /usr/local/bin/node
sudo yum install nodejs --enablerepo=epel-testing

The newer packages put the node binaries in /usr/bin, instead of /usr/local/bin.

And some background:

The option --enablerepo=epel causes yum to search for the packages in the EPEL repository.

EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) is open source and free community based repository project from Fedora team which provides 100% high quality add-on software packages for Linux distribution including RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), CentOS, and Scientific Linux. Epel project is not a part of RHEL/Cent OS but it is designed for major Linux distributions by providing lots of open source packages like networking, sys admin, programming, monitoring and so on. Most of the epel packages are maintained by Fedora repo. Via http://www.tecmint.com/how-to-enable-epel-repository-for-rhel-centos-6-5/

Like others, the accepted answer also gave me an outdated version.

Here is another way to do it that works very well:

$ curl --silent --location https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_16.x | bash -
$ yum -y install nodejs

You can also replace the 16.x with another version, such as 18.x, 14.x, etc.

You can see all available versions on the NodeSource Github page, and pull from there as well if desired.

Note: you may need to run using sudo depending on your environment.

The accepted answer gave me node 0.10.36 and npm 1.3.6 which are very out of date. I grabbed the latest linux-x64 tarball from the nodejs downloads page and it wasn't too difficult to install: https://nodejs.org/dist/latest/.

# start in a directory where you like to install things for the current user
(For noobs : it downloads node package as node.tgz file in your directlry)
curl (paste the link to the one you want from the downloads page) >node.tgz

Now upzip the tar you just downloaded -

tar xzf node.tgz

Run this command and then also add it to your .bashrc:

export PATH="$PATH:(your install dir)/(node dir)/bin"

(example : export PATH ="$PATH:/home/ec2-user/mydirectory/node/node4.5.0-linux-x64/bin")

And update npm (only once, don't add to .bashrc):

npm install -g npm

Note that the -g there which means global, really means global to that npm instance which is the instance we just installed and is limited to the current user. This will apply to all packages that npm installs 'globally'.

Simple install with NVM...

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.34.0/install.sh | bash
. ~/.nvm/nvm.sh
nvm install node

To install a certain version (such as 12.16.3) of Node change the last line to

nvm install 12.16.3

For more information about how to use NVM visit the docs: https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm

The procedure that worked for me (following these rather old instructions with a few updates):

check git is installed git --version or install it via: sudo yum install git

install gcc and openssl: sudo yum install gcc-c++ make sudo yum install openssl-devel

clone the git repo into a directory called node (which you can remove later): git clone https://github.com/nodejs/node.git

decide which version of node you want at https://github.com/nodejs/node/releases

go to the node directory just created and install node cd node git checkout v6.1.0 - put your desired version after the v ./configure make sudo make install

test that node is installed / working with either node --version or simply node (exit node via process.exit() or ^C x 2 or ^C + exit)

check the npm version: npm --version and update if necessary via sudo npm install -g npm

Optional: remove the node directory with rm -r node

Notes:

The accepted answer didn't work since sudo yum install nodejs --enablerepo=epel-testing returns the error: No package nodejs available. ...and sudo yum install nodejs --enablerepo=epel (ie without -testing) only gave very old versions. If you already have an old version of node installed you can remove it with: sudo npm uninstall npm -g ...since npm can uninstall itself sudo yum erase nodejs sudo rm -f /usr/local/bin/node (sudo yum rm nodejs in the accepted answer won't work as rm is not a valid yum command see yum --help) It's possible to clone the node repo via git clone git://github.com/nodejs/node.git rather than git clone https://github.com/nodejs/node.gitbut you may get a various errors (see here). If you already have a /node dir from a previous install, remove it before using the git clone command (or there'll be a conflict): rm -r node If you have trouble with any sudo npm... command - like sudo: npm: command not found and/or have permissions issues installing node packages without sudo, edit sudo nano /etc/sudoers and add :/usr/local/bin to the end of the line Defaults secure_path = /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin so that it reads Defaults secure_path = /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin

For the v4 LTS version use:

curl --silent --location https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_4.x | bash -
yum -y install nodejs

For the Node.js v6 use:

curl --silent --location https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_6.x | bash -
yum -y install nodejs

I also ran into some problems when trying to install native addons on Amazon Linux. If you want to do this you should also install build tools:

yum install gcc-c++ make

Seems no one is mentioning this. On Amazon Linux 2, official way to load EPEL is:

sudo amazon-linux-extras install epel

...then you may:

sudo yum install nodejs

See Extras Library (Amazon Linux 2)

I just came across this. I tried a few of the more popular answers, but in the end, what worked for me was Amazon's quick setup guide.

Tutorial: Setting Up Node.js on an Amazon EC2 Instance

The gist of the tutorial is:

Make sure you are ssh'd onto the instance. Grab nvm: curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.32.0/install.sh | bash Active . ~/.nvm/nvm.sh Install node using nvm nvm install 4.4.5 (NOTE: You can choose a different version. Check out the remote versions first by running $ nvm ls-remote) Finally, test that you have installed node Node correctly by running $ node -e "console.log('Running Node.js' + process.version)"

Hopefully this helps the next person.

I had Node.js 6.x installed and wanted to install Node.js 8.x.

Here's the commands I used (taken from Nodejs's site with a few extra steps to handle the yum cached data):

sudo yum remove nodejs: Uninstall Node.js 6.x (I don't know if this was necessary or not) curl --silent --location https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_8.x | sudo bash - sudo yum clean all sudo yum makecache: Regenerate metadata cache (this wasn't in the docs, but yum kept trying to install Node.jx 6.x, unsuccessfully, until I issued these last two commands) sudo yum install nodejs: Install Node.js 8.x

RHEL, CentOS, CloudLinux, Amazon Linux or Fedora:

# As root
curl -fsSL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | bash -

# No root privileges
curl -fsSL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | sudo bash -

sudo yum install -y nodejs

sudo yum install nodejs npm --enablerepo=epel works for Amazon Linux AMI. curl --silent --location https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_6.x | bash - yum -y install nodejs works for RedHat.

The easiest solution is this( do these as root)

sudo su root
cd /etc
mkdir node
yum install wget
wget https://nodejs.org/dist/v9.0.0/node-v9.0.0-linux-x64.tar.gz
tar -xvf node-v9.0.0-linux-x64.tar.gz
cd node-v9.0.0-linux-x64/bin
./node -v
ln -s /etc/node-v9.0.0-linux-x64/bin/node node

https://i.stack.imgur.com/uLwoq.jpg

https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager/#debian-and-ubuntu-based-linux-distributions

curl --silent --location https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo bash - sudo yum -y install nodejs

Official Documentation for EC2-Instance works for me: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-javascript/v2/developer-guide/setting-up-node-on-ec2-instance.html

 1. curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.32.0/install.sh | bash
 2. . ~/.nvm/nvm.sh
 3. nvm ls-remote (=> find your version x.x.x =>) nvm install  x.x.x
 4. node -e "console.log('Running Node.js ' + process.version)"

I usually use NVM to install node on server. It gives me option to install multiple version of nodejs.

Commands are given below :

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.35.3/install.sh | bash

then check if it's installed properly using :

command -v nvm

after that, run this to install latest version :

nvm install node 

or

nvm install 11 

MAY 2022

I spent way too long on this. My Amazon Linux 2 configuration, running as root.

#!/usr/bin/env zsh

# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11542846/nvm-node-js-recommended-install-for-all-users
echo "=================================N=O=D=E========================================"

cd /usr/local/bin || exit 90

git clone https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm.git .nvm

\. "/usr/local/bin/.nvm/nvm.sh"

nvm install --lts

node -e "console.log('Running Node.js ' + process.version)"

cat << "EOF" > /etc/profile.d/npm.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
export NVM_DIR="/usr/local/bin/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"  # This loads nvm'}

EOF

chmod 755 /etc/profile.d/npm.sh

npm install -g npm

June 2022 - The system really hates when things arn't linked in the bin. Here's a small update to help if you need things accessible by other users. Admittedly adding /etc/profile.d/npm.sh is just what nvm suggests, but I find it over-rated. I think it could be removed in place of purely the ln -s. happy hacking

#!/bin/zsh

# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11542846/nvm-node-js-recommended-install-for-all-users
echo "=================================N=O=D=E========================================"

cd /usr/local/bin || exit 90

git clone https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm.git .nvm

# this uncontrolled script has an unbound variable $HOME
# @link https://github.com/Drop-In-Gaming/dropingaming.com/runs/6437329820?check_suite_focus=true
\. "/usr/local/bin/.nvm/nvm.sh" || true

# todo - try to install 18
nvm install --lts

nvm install 17

node -e "console.log('Running Node.js ' + process.version)"

cat << "EOF" > /etc/profile.d/npm.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
export NVM_DIR="/usr/local/bin/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"  # This loads nvm'}

EOF

echo 'source /etc/profile.d/npm.sh' >> /root/.bashrc

echo 'source /etc/profile.d/npm.sh' >> /root/.zshrc

echo 'source /etc/profile.d/npm.sh' >> /home/ssm-user/.bashrc

echo 'source /etc/profile.d/npm.sh' >> /home/ssm-user/.zshrc

echo 'source /etc/profile.d/npm.sh' >> /home/www-data/.bashrc

echo 'source /etc/profile.d/npm.sh' >> /home/www-data/.zshrc

chmod 755 /etc/profile.d/npm.sh

npm install -g npm

echo "===========================WHERE==IS==NODE==========================="

which node

which npm

echo "symlinking to /usr/bin/"

if [ -e /usr/bin/node ]; then

  sudo rm -f /usr/bin/node

fi

if [ -e /usr/bin/npm ]; then

  sudo rm -f /usr/bin/npm

fi

sudo ln -s "$(which node)" /usr/bin/

sudo ln -s "$(which npm)" /usr/bin/

As mentioned in official documentation , simple below 2 steps -

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

For those who want to have the accepted answer run in Ansible without further searches, I post the task here for convenience and future reference.

Accepted answer recommendation: https://stackoverflow.com/a/35165401/78935

Ansible task equivalent

tasks:
  - name: Setting up the NodeJS yum repository
    shell: curl --silent --location https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | bash -
    args:
      warn: no
  # ...

You can update/install the node by reinstalling the installed package to the current version which may save us from lotta of errors, while doing the update.

This is done by nvm with the below command. Here, I have updated my node version to 8 and reinstalled all the available packages to v8 too!

nvm i v8 --reinstall-packages-from=default

It works on AWS Linux instance as well.

As others mentioned using epel gives a really outdated version, here is a little script I just wrote instead to add to the CI pipeline or pass it to ec2 user-data to install the latest version of node, simply replace the version with what you want, and the appropriate distro of Linux you are using.

The following example is for amazon-Linux-2-AMI

#!/bin/bash

version='v14.13.1'
distro='linux-x64'
package_name="node-$version-$distro"
package_location="/usr/local/lib/"

curl -O https://nodejs.org/download/release/latest/$package_name.tar.gz
tar -xvf $package_name.tar.gz -C $package_location
rm -rfv $package_name.tar.gz

echo "export PATH=$package_location/$package_name/bin:\$PATH" >> ~/.profile

if you want to test it in the same shell simply run

. ~/.profile